Many heartfelt condolences, including my own, have come in from around the world paying tribute to the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s International Representative, Abdul Akbar Muhammad.
For nearly five decades, Brother Akbar shared the wisdom, experience, and inspiration garnered from his extensive travel to over 154 countries, including 44 in Africa, with a global influence that only a select few have been able to replicate.
As Samantha Smith (Fenty), sister of singer, songwriter, and businesswoman Rihanna, wrote in her condolence letter, “Brother Akbar was a true bridge-builder—a man who understood the power of relationships and used his influence not for himself.
But to bring people together across borders, cultures, and backgrounds. He moved through the world with purpose, and wherever he went, he left behind stronger connections and deeper understanding.”
Dr. Mujahid Nyahuma is chair of the group Global Africans. In his condolence remarks, he wrote, “Minister Akbar was a principled, humble, and steadfast Pan-African leader whose life reflected an unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and advancement of African people worldwide.
Guided by integrity and faith, he championed the greater good of both continental Africans and Africans in the Diaspora, advocating for equity, unity, and self-determination.”
Dr. Mujahid wrote on the critical and vital role that Bro. Akbar had in supporting and contributing to the historic African/African-American Summits, led by Rev Dr. Leon Sullivan, which took place in the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria in the early 1990s.
I was not only blessed to attend several of those summits, but I was also rewarded the honor of accompanying Brother Akbar on many of his travels abroad, including fact-finding missions he organized to Sudan and Zimbabwe, where a very large contingent of Black American and Caribbean journalists traveled the length and breadth of each country.
The fact-finding missions not only gave each journalist an up-close and personal view of Africa but also provided them with a wealth of firsthand knowledge of the country and its people, as opposed to what has historically been projected through the distorted lens of America’s corporate-run press.
Inspired by the Bro. Akbar produced press junkets to the continent, “Africa Watch,” my weekly column published in The Final Call newspaper, was born. Additional inspiration for the Africa Watch column came from accompanying Bro. Akbar abroad.
During those small group tours of Africa, he facilitated in-person interviews with African leaders and heads of state, including Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Discussing the wise advice he gave to potential travelers on one of his many group tours to Africa, Bro. Akbar explained “how to connect with our brothers and sisters in Africa and helped us to just understand from their perspective,” said Sister Letitia Muhammad of Mosque No. 1 in Detroit.
She reflected on Bro. Akbar’s organizing efforts leading up to the Nation of Islam’s first International Saviours’ Day, held in Accra, Ghana, in 1994. “He came to the various cities, and he would talk with those who were thinking of traveling to Ghana,” she said.
“Brother Akbar gave us such an education in a very short amount of time on how to conduct ourselves, as we go back to where many of us (ancestors) probably were taken from, during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”
She said, as a college student at Clark Atlanta University, she couldn’t afford the convention and said Bro. Akbar went out of his way to accommodate, at a reduced cost, students who wanted to attend the convention.
Bro. Akbar was also known for his love of books. During his lectures around the country and the world, you were always encouraged to bring a pen and notepad to jot down the books he’d introduce during the course of his speech.
During an April 13, 2018, interview, with this writer, focusing on the history of Black books and Black bookstores, Bro. Akbar said, “I was inspired to read because I attended a mosque meeting,” he said, referring to the Nation of Islam temple (as they were called at that time).
He explained that at Temple No. 7 in New York in 1961, under Minister Malcolm X, “Malcolm had a way of going after literature … which inspired me to read.”
Bro. Akbar said after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and the firebombing of the temple (mosque), the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad purchased the building and rebuilt Temple No. 7 on 116th and Lenox Avenue.
Bro. Akbar said the first commercial business to open on the ground floor was “Books n Things,” co-owned by him and Bro. Dr. Abdul Salaam, the dentist of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. At the time, Dr. Salaam was one of America’s largest distributors of Holy Qur’ans, which he imported from overseas.
Books N Things became one of the largest distributors of Black books and Islamic literature in the country. Brother Akbar said Books n Things had a mail-order business with the prison population that covered the length and breadth of the country. He said that, just from their mail-order business, the bookstore, at its height in the early 1970s, would bring in “$500 to $1000 a day.”
The life, legacy, and contributions of Minister Abdul Akbar Muhammad are a testament to his life as a servant, brother, and scholar and will never be forgotten.
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